


Kamome

by lurknomoar



Series: Bits and Pieces and Older Writings [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Snippets about the yuri's character development as it relates to his daemon, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-27 04:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20401708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurknomoar/pseuds/lurknomoar
Summary: Yuri's daemon is, quite surprisingly, not a poodle.





	Kamome

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the first Daemon AU in this fandom, but it also won't be the last.

Yuri reads the news in a skating magazine: Junior World Champion Victor Nikiforov’s daemon finally settled as a poodle. It seems appropriate for Moccacino: traces of down-to-earth qualities like hard work and determination combined with a good pedigree, an undeniable grace and class. Yuri’s own daemon Vicchan (originally Vittoria) spends the next few months trying on different sizes, shapes and colors of poodleness.

* * *

Yuri is a late bloomer, but his parents told him not to worry. His mother’s daemon only settled as macaque in her twenties. Still, Vicchan has mostly been a poodle for a long while now, and Yuri assumes that’s what she really is, it’s only his doubt, his stupid worry that sometimes forces her to shrink down into a mouse, a rat, a tiny skittery lizard.

* * *

A few days before his first Grand Prix Finale, Yuri wakes up to see that Vicchan has nestled onto his pillow and she took on a shape she hasn’t worn for years: a common grey Hasetsu seagull. And she’s not changing anymore. Your daemon settling should be a great occasion, something joyful if a little bittersweet, and yet, Yuri can’t help crying, and he feels ashamed for crying, but he feels even more ashamed of what his new daemon says about him. It feels like he lost Vicchan, like he lost a part of himself, the part that had class and grace, the part that had hope and ambition.

* * *

He doesn’t know if he loses so badly because his daemon settled, or if his daemon settled because he knew he was going to lose.

* * *

(He doesn’t remember the banquet, he doesn’t remember getting drunk, he doesn’t remember Vicchan’s aimless circles around the room, grooming everyone’s daemon, pecking Yurio’s, before settling on Victor’s shoulder, _touching his hair_, tucking strand after strand behind his reddening ears.)

* * *

When Victor comes to Hasetsu, Yuri’s embarrassed by the horrible shape he’s in, he’s mortified by his dumpster-feeding patchy-feathered urban seagull of a daemon. (He doesn’t know that Victor’s first thought upon seeing that seagull is always an overwhelming wave of homesickness - no, not quite. A feeling of already being home.)

* * *

During the weeks they spend together, Yuri finds out that Moccacino the poodle is not exactly the picture of class and grace that his media appearances suggest. When he’s not sprawled out somewhere half-asleep, he’s an overenthusiastic jumpy slobbery mess.

* * *

Yuri also remembers something he forgot during the months Vicchan spent huddled on his shoulder or in his backpack: unlike dogs, birds can fly. He does something he hasn’t done since he was a child, and sends her wheeling up above the sea, feeling the connection between them safe and secure even when she is just a speck of darker grey in front of a grey sky. He wades into the water and Vicchan returns to him, dropping like a stone, laughing.

* * *

Moccacino’s overenthusiasm is really hard to get used to: he doesn’t seem to understand that a daemon is not meant to touch other people. He tackles people to lick their faces, he butts his head under people’s hands asking for pets, he falls asleep on people’s feet. It takes Yuri months to admit that Moccacino doesn’t act like this around everybody, he acts like this around him, specifically. This only serves to fluster him even worse, and he still startles and scampers away when the back of his hand brushes against warm, curly fur. (He misses Vicchan - he still has her, he knows, but he misses what she used to be, before.)

* * *

I won’t detail the post-silver-medal scene, the tearful laughter, the uncoordinated hug, the hands on fur and on feathers, the understanding, the relief: it’s easy enough to imagine.


End file.
